September 11, 2012
At the elite colleges - dim white kids
Peter Schmidt in the Boston Globe:
Autumn and a new academic year are upon us, which means that selective colleges are engaged in the annual ritual of singing the praises of their new freshman classes.
Surf the websites of such institutions and you will find press releases boasting that they have increased their black and Hispanic enrollments, admitted bumper crops of National Merit scholars or became the destination of choice for hordes of high school valedictorians. Many are bragging about the large share of applicants they rejected, as a way of conveying to the world just how popular and selective they are.
What they almost never say is that many of the applicants who were rejected were far more qualified than those accepted. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, it was not the black and Hispanic beneficiaries of affirmative action, but the rich white kids with cash and connections who elbowed most of the worthier applicants aside.
Researchers with access to closely guarded college admissions data have found that, on the whole, about 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at America's highly selective colleges are white teens who failed to meet their institutions' minimum admissions standards.
More here.
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 10:38 AM | Permalink
Comments
Some dim white frat boys did quite well for themselves out of the legacy system; not so well for the country. I would like to see athletic scholarships, legacies and affirmative action all eliminated in favor of a strict meritocracy but I know it isn't going to happen.
Posted by: Reader | Sep 11, 2012 10:51:14 AM
I suspect you would find that a "strict meritocracy" would be devastating to the social compact of our society - see the Economist on "The Rise and Rise of the Cognitive Elite" at http://www.economist.com/node/17929013
I think a better solution would be an estate tax of 95% or so - to avoid creating an hereditary leisure class in America.
Posted by: Don McArthur | Sep 11, 2012 11:17:54 AM
I for one am glad that the people in the front seat of the American bus going over the cliff are well-connected elites who are "party hardy" and cooler than middle class scum like me.
Posted by: DAS | Sep 11, 2012 11:44:59 AM
Dim rich kids wouldn't have to be admitted if colleges would keep their costs down by spending money on teachers rather than administrators.
Posted by: Shelley | Sep 11, 2012 12:12:54 PM
Without this legacy profile where would the equity funds find the young sociopaths to raid workers' pensions and then brazenly take pictures of themselves with the booty sticking out of every opening in the thousand dollar suits?
Posted by: Erich | Sep 11, 2012 9:05:08 PM
Reminds me of the old story about Samuel Beckett who often lamented the idiots in his classes at Trinity College, Dublin. When one of his senior colleagues berated him: "Mr Beckett, this is the cream of the country!" he replied in a flash, "Yes, rich and thick."
Posted by: howl of minerva | Sep 12, 2012 7:06:49 AM
Sadly,I never thought this could happen at the pinnacle of learning of a, believed to be, 'just and democratic' society.No wonder, most smart kids from the developing world do not stand a chance of entry.Thankfully so, if Harvard lacks integrity which is the essence of education.
Posted by: rohana | Sep 12, 2012 7:24:48 AM
We honor the range of cultural identities, the better to ignore the realities of class. An emphasis on diversity makes it easier to pretend that our institutions (particularly our educational institutions) are meritocratic in nature.
Scott McLemee, Liberty Equality Diversity?
Posted by: BobbyV | Sep 12, 2012 8:45:25 AM
I noticed this about Harvard in particular when I went to MIT. At the time, I believed this was stupid & unfair, as the article's author claims. But, I later changed my mind. Harvard wants to educate the nation's leaders, and the world's. MIT wants to train the world's technocrats; these are very different agendas, each with its own advantages.
What I saw in Cambridge was that when Harvard recruits, they look for any kind of leadership: intellectual leadership, athletic leadership, political leadership, business leadership, financial leadership - all good; that's the mix of people who'll lead a complex society like the US. MIT recruits primarily by IQ points, which is what the Globe says it wants in a university.
So, the Globe's author assumes that the US & the world ought to be a meritocracy, a cherished wish of intellectuals. But for the present & foreseeable future, worldwide meritocracy is not happening.
Meanwhile, many of tomorrow's leaders will come from privileged backgrounds, and we all need them to be as well-educated as their sometimes-feeble minds will allow; otherwise, we'll all suffer worse under their uneducated stewardship
Of course, Harvard's style of leadership, and its cohort of graduates, wield more influence today than MIT's. And I submit that this is approximately as it should be; please don't suppose that an MIT-led USA would be a more fair and egalitarian place than the US is now. Meritocracies aren't any more interested in egalitarianism, than are oligarchies.
Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 13, 2012 9:26:58 PM
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